Some health researchers are more concerned about the publications of their research in journals other translating it for general use by the community. This came up at a meeting held on Tuesday night as part of the events to mark Makerere University’s centenary celebrations.
Speaking at the meeting, Prof. Harriet Mayanja-Kizza, a Professor of Medicine in the College of Health Science noted that a lot of research is being done on key public health problems by the university and through partnership, but these messages are never taken to lower health facilities, which are supposed to adopt them.
She noted that in other areas, it’s mandatory that after doing a Ph.D. a scientist is required to work in his area of study for not less than ten years.
On average each year, the College of Health Sciences at Makerere produces over 500 journals but there are concerns about their impacts on the communities.
Dr. Andrew Kambugu, the Executive Director of the Infectious Diseases Institute-IDI, says that going forward, there’s a need to set up innovation parks near the campus where the data that’s not meant for use by health facilities is used to come up with products that can be commercialized.
This he says can be done if they engage in transdisciplinary research unlike now when researchers are not talking to each other.
According to Prof. Rhoda Wanyenze, who heads the School of Public Health, their biggest challenge is that scientists are not given a chance to innovate. She says that they need permission to think because of the fact that most of the studies are funded and the research agenda is dictated by interests of donors.
The scientists are now pushing for more domestic funding for research. The government has already started allocating an annual budget of Shillings 30 billion under the Makerere University Research and Innovations Fund but very little of what they have so far researched since 2019 when the initial money was released under this arrangement has been translated into usable products.
Dr. Charles Olaro, the Director of Clinical Services in the Ministry of Health responded to these concerns, saying that they are already using data from the school of public health to map Uganda’s family planning needs. He, however, adds that they can only adopt innovations that are cost-effective since they are working with minimum budgets.
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